CLEVELAND – On the eve of the national championship game, South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley was asked about the significance of playing for a national championship as an undefeated team going against the national player of the year Caitlin Clark and Iowa.
The night before, Iowa and UConn, a game highlighted by Clark and fellow college basketball star Paige Bueckers, drew 14.2 million viewers, shattering ESPN’s all time viewership record for any basketball game – women’s or men’s, collegiate or pro.
The game that preceded, South Carolina vs NC State, drew half of that number – 7.1 million.
For most of this year’s record-breaking women’s college basketball tournament, despite being the No.1 team in the country and entering the tournament as an undefeated title favorite, South Carolina hadn’t been a part of any record-shattering viewership.
“I hope it’s the most watched game,” Staley said on Saturday. “I’ve been a part of witnessing from the outside looking into the most watched game. It’s going to be fun to hopefully be a part of it. In the mix of things.”
Against Iowa in the national championship on Sunday, in front of what will likely be the newly-minted most watched basketball game on ESPN networks, South Carolina beat Iowa 87-75 to become the 10th team in women’s college basketball history to complete an undefeated season. A year after disappointment, Staley’s response was one so emphatic, so firm and forcible, that it’s arguably her greatest single-season coaching performance in her 24 seasons.
A season ago, after entering the NCAA tournament undefeated, South Carolina was upset by Clark and the Hawkeyes in the national semifinal, ending their bid at going back-to-back after winning the 2022 national championship over UConn. There was a general sentiment felt over the course of this year’s NCAA tournament that South Carolina had quietly raced to the national championship game as the spotlight shined brighter on the tournament’s individual superstars.
Staley took a team that had a completely new starting five while carrying the same national championship expectations, then proceeded to win 38 straight games. She capped off a historic undefeated season by toppling a Clark led-Iowa squad – a team that had beat UConn and defending champion LSU on its path to this year’s championship game. It was a storybook ending for Staley, who continues to traverse new ground for a Black head coach in the sport.
“I think it just cements her greatness in this time where there is so much parity in the game,” said Seattle Storm assistant coach and former LSU coach Pokey Chatman. “The rules literally have changed in the game. She’s been able to maintain the highest level of basketball – retainability, respectability, everything in between.”
For Staley, who in recent years has had the depth of her coaching pedigree challenged and the level of her strategic IQ questioned, Sunday served as an inarguable statement to her excellence as a head coach.
“A lot of people don’t want to see her here. I think they kind of side eye her in some places and she is unexpected to be in those places. But she’s there and she’s 10 toes down and she’s keeping her head up, her chin up and going head forward into all adversity or anything that looks abnormal,” said former Gamecock great A’ja Wilson.
“She’s already goated in my eyes but another championship is another thing that a person can’t take away from her. A lot of people try to discredit her in different places like ‘well she’s still got to do this.’… She still just continues to be herself. … It’s just another cherry on the cherry on top of her legacy.”
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This season was a statement that feels almost silly for Staley to need to assert considering what she and the Gamecocks have accomplished in the last three seasons alone. Two national championships. Three-consecutive Final Fours. Two SEC tournament championships. Five first-round draft picks (soon to be six with senior center Kamilla Cardoso).
An overall record of 109-3.
In recent years, multiple polls have been published by media outlets asking anonymous coaches which coaches in women’s basketball are the best at X’s and O’s. In both instances, including a 2023 poll by The Athletic, Staley hasn’t ranked amongst the top coaches in the game despite her success.
When the latest poll, published by The Next, was published last month, Chatman called Staley.
“She doesn’t need that, ‘oh I ran this amazing new play;’ she understands that the game is not being reinvented. She knows what to use when,” said Chapman who led LSU to three Final Fours from 2003 to 2006. “ I think what happens is Dawn is not trying to toot her own horn. When someone says get the ball to Kamilla, she doesn’t feel the need to tell you the three, four, five steps that got the ball to Kamilla. She’s not going to say, ‘let’s come down in transition and drag [screen with] her, get her in the post and get her reverse in high-low [action].’ It gets overlooked because Kamilla is 6-foot-7, runs like a guard and can post the hell up.
“It irritates me,” Chapman continued. “The players and their success will show how much she’s teaching them.”
But Staley doesn’t care about whether she receives respect from her peers or the attention of those who continue to overlook her program. As she sat at the podium following Sunday’s championship victory, a national title trophy to her left that will join the other two on her championship mantle, her response to critics was to simply look at the hardware.
“For whatever discrepancies people have [with] my coaching ability, who we’re beating – people think I’m just a player’s coach and not an X’s and O’s coach,” Staley said. “If we’re not an X’ing and O’ing staff, how are we beating the X’ing and O’ing coaches, programs? I really don’t care as long as we keep winning championships.
“That’s what matters at the end of the day.”
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With this championship season from South Carolina, Staley and her coaching staff showcased their prowess in the development and growth of the Gamecocks’ roster.
This year, South Carolina was one of just eight Division I teams to have five players improve their scoring by three or more points per game from last season to this season. In addition, South Carolina’s freshman phenom guard MiLaysia Fulwiley, and guard Tessa Johnson – who led the team in scoring in the national championship with 19 points — were integral parts of the team’s success this season.
“Watching her develop her players on and off the court, that’s what’s impressive,” said former USC player and head coach Cheryl Miller. “It’s the investment of her time, her knowledge, for her players. You can see them grow, go to the next level and they’re sought after players in the W because you know they’re well-coached. That’s all attributed to Dawn’s knowledge as a former player, an Olympian and head coach.”
Perhaps bigger than her roster’s individual growth continues to be Staley’s ability to get a roster lined with five-star talent to buy into a culture that requires individual sacrifice for the greater success of the team. The result was one of the deepest, high-performing rosters in the history of the sport. It’s been a key tenet of Staley’s program and was the difference in securing another championship.
“I think she’s a victim of her own successful circumstances,” Chapman said. “I think they’ve just come to expect her to win. It’s almost like if you have a bunch of All-Americans it becomes, ‘well, you have All Americans.’ By the same token, you don’t get credit for managing them. Other people have that grace and I don’t quite understand why Dawn doesn’t get that grace.”
What deepens Staley’s accomplishment is she’s done it while continuing to carry the mantle for Black coaches in the sport. Staley’s third title made her the first Black coach in college basketball history to win three national titles and lead a team to an undefeated season. As Black coaches in the sport continue to make history with each passing tournament, Staley has continually led from the front with the goal to uplift those behind her at all levels of the game.
“Winning a third championship means so much for South Carolina, Dawn, women’s basketball, her program, but it’s much more for us as Black coaches, Black women coaches,” Seattle Storm head coach Noelle Quinn said. “We see what happens when universities, everyone, pours resources into a coach like her.
“The time that she has poured into me and other coaches alike – it’s amazing she is still able to be so level-headed, purpose-driven and never lose sight of the goal. I look up to her. I’m inspired by her. I’m thankful for her, for carrying the torch and her position with so much grace and gratitude – a woman of God. These are things that she stands firm in and she never backs down from. It’s a great example for us as coaches.”
Staley and South Carolina, as currently constructed, have the capacity to continue at a championship rate for seasons to come. Cardoso’s loss will undoubtedly be felt by the program, but the rest of their roster is currently slated to return. The team also will welcome another top-level recruiting class, including Joyce Edwards, the No. 2 overall prospect in the class of 2024.
As Staley continues her reign leading the best program in the country over the last decade, she’ll continue to pour into those she represents and those who walk through her program. While she hopes others show South Carolina the respect its accolades have earned, Staley is content regardless – a sentiment confirmed by the winning hug of another net around her neck.
“We have quietly done things, in my opinion, the right way,” Staley said. “We find the right pieces to help us … We’re very disciplined in how we approach basketball. I am one that I am forever indebted to basketball. I’m always going to take care of it. I’m always going to make sure our players are respectful. I’m always going to make sure that they know the history of our game, and are always respectful to our opponents. When you do it that way, in return, you have success.
“I don’t think that’s talked about enough. I don’t know why and I really don’t care why. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, the right way – whether we’re [one of] the popular or unpopular successful programs in the country. We’re going to keep doing it that way.”
